Like most everyone else, I live in a world full of insanity. A little insanity is good. A lot of insanity makes me want to hide under the covers all day. So now, I try to mitigate some of the insanity and enjoy the rest.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

What is mitigated insanity? If you know, please tell me.

For a while now, actually for years, my darling/annoying (depends on the day/hour/minute) husband, Jim, has been encouraging me to write down all the crazy stuff in my head. For the most part it's been sweet words of encouragement. Lately, it's been, "Damn it, go write a blog and make us rich so I don't have to work anymore." Those who know Jim get how funny this statement is coming out of his mouth. For the rest of you, "You'll understand it when you're older." In the past, I've always shot him down with an assortment of excuses. I don't like writing, has been the big one. When really there are two main reasons I've never voluntarily tried writing before.

One, I can be pretty obsessive-compulsive about how I do things. I mean, in order to do something I want or need to do, I will spend hours trying to come up with a plan to get from A to Z while trying to also account for a possible L, M, N, O, and P that may or may not ever exist between the two points. Usually, if I can't find an answer to all possible scenarios, I just give up. Seriously, why even bother to try it, if I can already see that there's plenty of opportunities for failure? After all, I'm not asking for a PERFECT path from A to Z. I'm simply asking for a signed and notarized contract from my brain (with two forms of picture ID) that says if there is an L, M, N, O, or P between points A and Z that they eventually will get me to Z without any loss of life, limbs, or puppy dogs (You can have the cats, since they are currently on my shit list). Why is that so hard!? Well, as Jim has pointed out many times I'm setting myself up for failure before I even start. So, I'm working on changing, but it's slow.

This attempt at blogging is a good case in point. I spent parts of two days coming up with the name of this blog. Just the name! Ask Jim, he had to talk me down the second night. I really like the name now though. Then I started obsessing about how the actual site looked, which meant looking through hundreds of blogspot templates and then all the ways I could adjust them. Oh, and I'm not happy with how it looks, but it'll have to do until I can create something on my own--that's a whole other OC project. At least this time, I reminded myself that I can change it later, so it doesn't have to look perfect immediately. It's a work in progress, just like me.

So, on to actually writing. This is where I got into the real obsessing. What should I write my first post about? Should I create different folders for different types of topics? Can I even do that in blogspot? Should I use my real name? What about the names of other people? Should I get their permission before talking about them (Thanks a lot Lawyer Jim for sticking the legality questions into my brain. I thought you were trying to help?)? I became so panicked after trying once before to write a post, when all of these questions started popping in my head that I quit. Kind of. I told myself I was going to quit. But for two weeks, it has been nagging at me. I realized once again that it doesn't have to be perfect, and I don't have to write it all at once. So, I'm back trying again. This time I can't seem to stop writing. So, I guess that's progress, maybe. Anyway, I know this is long, but bare with me...or don't, because I'll probably never know. I'm not even listening to the imaginary you that's complaining that this post is so fucking long!

All of this kind of leads into my second reason, which is FEAR! Mainly, a fear of failing. I don't mean failing something that I don't really care about. After all, it's one thing to try to learn to French (Something I tried for about 1 day, okay 10 minutes) and fail. Since, when I fail I can just tell myself it doesn't really matter because I didn't really want to learn French. It was just something to try one day when I was bored. I was reallybored! It's another thing to write a blog, a story, a book about me that's out there for everyone to read, evaluate, analyze, criticize, ignore, Q, R, S, T. After all, people might see the real me, and they might not like what they see.

Which leads to my other major fear. I have a GIANT fear of disappointing people. I'm always telling Jim I don't want to do X, because I'm afraid it will upset someone else. He always asks me why I care so much if they're disappointed. Recently, I've really started asking myself that too. Why do I care? I mean, it's one thing to care about disappointing someone because you've actually done them harm. However, it's finally starting to seem silly to me to care if someone is disappointed because I have a different view point or belief. After all, I may think some of their ideas are crazy too, but I still value them for other things they do. And, if I can't find any common ground with a person, then why am I obsessing over what they think about me? Not worth it anymore! Or, is it? After all if I don't write things that every one can agree with, I'll lose all of the imaginary readers I have and will never be
able to publish that self help book, that will be the answer to every
single person's problems! I can see now that I've already failed. Wait, self help book? That wasn't point Z was it? Maybe I shouldn't worry so much about Z right now, and just focus on getting to B?

So, I've decided to mitigate some of the insanity in my head, and start saying what I think. At least, I'm going to write what I think here. I'll branch out to real people later. I'm not sure what all I'll write about in the future, but there will probably be a lot more cursing involved--my close friends already know that I curse like a sailor. All of this will probably upset some people--possibly to the point of them disassociating themselves with me. If that's the case, then so be it. That's one less person in my head telling me I'm going to Hell. For the rest of you, I'm hoping my writing will be therapeutic for me, and at least amusing for you. I just plan to write about life as I see it. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that can be pretty warped sometimes. So, future posts are sure to be much more amusing and probably not this long. Of course, you don't have to read it, if you don't want to. Except for Jim. He has to read every word, because he's the one that talked me into this. Thank you, I think?

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About Me

My real name is Michelle. For years I've worked in my husband's IP law firm trying to keep everyone sane. Not easy since I'm the craziest one in the office. I prefer to think of it as having tons of personal experience applicable to the work place.

For a while now, we've been transitioning into doing other things. What we're transitioning to is still a work in progress. This has raised the insanity level a degree or ten.

So, in the mean time, I write. Okay, I occasionally write. It's supposed to be for me. However, if you find yourself thinking your life has been a little too normal and boring, then feel free to come over here and realize how great you have it.

If insanity is what you really crave though, then pull up a chair, because I'm dishing it out all day long!